Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Original Language

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

Page 13

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit: The Original Language
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Aspects of Buddhist Sanskrit
There are scholars who distinguish their goal from the sound. It is not the sound which is determined that something has been expressed in the sound. It is an ideal form that they had in mind, combination of the different feelings. A language may be an ideal concept. It seems the Vedic language, as a spoken language, has the perpetual existence. Buddhists believe in the sayings, the Vedāntins believe in the sayings, yet there is no similarity at all. My point is the paper begins with the discussion with the idea that Buddhists like others belicve in original language, and then pocs on to discuss the explanations offered by Candrakirti and others, deserving the unique usages. Now how do we take these two different levels which are very widely separated. That is my question, I would like you to comment on, if you feel so.
Anårsa means avaidika no doubt, but avaidika in the sense different from the language of the Vedas. That is the meaning here. As he uses bhåså, as he uscs laukika and for Vedic language Pāṇini uses mantra Panini uses Chandas, Panini uses Veda. So far the language of the common people the grammar of which he was writing, he uses anårsa and does not uses anårsa in this very sense that language was not spoken by rsis. While speaking about this Hybrid Buddhist Sanskrit, he says that both are an årsa. The Vedic language is Arsa and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is also arsa? So they are equally at par with. That is not the thing, which is said in this paper. How can we adopt this idea? That is the difficulty. We call the uscs which are aberrations which are not in conformity with the Paninian rules used in the Puranas and Mahabharata or in other slokas of Jyotisaśasra Samudrikaśästra in slokas like yåsundari så patinå etc. The word patina is called årsa prayoga. So, such ages are called årsa, which are oldest than Panini, which we should not judge from the rules of Pāṇini and here he says that every aberration in the type of the language used by Buddhists is arsa, these are the things and other philosophical things to be discussed in detail.
L.N. Tiwari
Alex Wayman
As the author of this paper is not present, it is very difficult to raise questions or criticism or observations on this paper. But it seems that it has been written in a haphazard way. For instance he says "The example is the same as the one given by Patañjali. but Kumārila adds a dimension which we do not find in the Mahabhäsya". That is a totally incorrect statement. The author of the Mahābhasya has cited the example of go itself and gives certain aberrations of the word go. So, how he says that the exposition given by Patañjali is not like that as it has been given by Kumärila. Then he mentioned at the same page that Kumārila takes this in reference to the language of the mlecchas. In the very begining of the Paspasāhnika of the Mahābhasya, where aims and objectives of the study of grammar is explained. He says na mlecchitavai. That means that one should not speak as the mlecchas speak, therefore, one should study grammar. Thus the intentions of the Mahābhāsyakära and Kumärila, are the same. Both are misrepresented here. The author brings forth the idea that Vedic language is also Hybrid Sanskrit. That is very peculiar. He says that like Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, also stands the Sanskrit. Both are Hybrid because both are Arsa. A new trend had started to call Vedic language as a Hybrid language. Look at his statement when he writes. "The situation of the Vedic Brahmins was in many respects parallel to that of those Buddhists who used Sanskrit but preserved sacred texts in "Hybrid Sanskrit." It is a typical statement. Thereafter he says 'Pāņini's grammar uses once (I. I, 16) the word anarşc, in the sense of avaidika 'non-vedic according to the interpretation of the Kafika".
I may, in agreement, say that this kind of argument is like saying that the Asoka Hotel is Jewish. You know that they named this hotel Asoka. And we can use the same when we are using the word- arsa. It would make this hotel Atri. that is what he has done. What I said last night, also I realise, I should mention here, that he tried to cover too many subjects in one paper. If you can talk about Kumaraläta, why don't you study Kumaraláta, why not a paper on Kumaraláta. If you could talk about Jainas, then study the Jainas, write, a paper on the Jainas. If you are talking about the Hebru then study what they do and write a paper on them. Otherwise everybody would be dissatisfied. Why could say about Vedic, why could'nt you say about Kumaraláta? Nobody is satisfied because he tried to cover everything in onc paper.
N.H. Samtani
I think consensus here is not much appreciative of the jumbling of facts. Last conclusion is even very much dissatisfying when he said that Buddhist "look upon the language of their sacred texts as fundamentally indentical with classical Sanskrit ". Now I